The Death of the Hotel Minibar (& What Comes Next)

Getting a simple glass of wine in your hotel room is a wildly disappointing experience.

The Indignity of the Minibar

Crawling around on your hands and knees to rifle through that dorm room fridge for a cheap plastic screw cap evokes Spring Break, not the great chateaus of Bordeaux. Of course, that’s if you can get past the ridiculous mark-up or the fact that the wine is usually awful and improperly stored.

There had to be a better way.

The Kit Kat Theory

No matter how much money you have, no one likes feeling like they are being taken advantage of. Paying $6 for a Kit Kat, or $60 for a 375ml of mediocre wine leaves a bad taste in your mouth, literally and figuratively.

In the last five years, I don’t think I’ve ever opened the minibar for wine.

Have you?

The Waiting Game

Room service was introduced in 1936 — and unfortunately, not much has changed since then. It was built around food, not to serve guests wine by the glass.

Everyone wants — and deserves — a great glass of wine at the end of day while they catch up on email, unwind, or enjoy the sunset. Unfortunately, the room service wait time makes this nearly impossible.

Hoteliers have had their hands tied though. Technology wasn’t available to dramatically improve this experience.

Plum Moments

We designed Plum to be the future of in-room wine — delivering a perfectly preserved and chilled glass of red or white, on-demand, just as the winemaker intended. Plum becomes a virtual tasting room, helping guests to understand, and better enjoy, what they are drinking.

Wine is a luxury, not a necessity (though some might reasonably argue with this). Just as you stop by Starbucks in the morning for a perfect almond milk latte for a small respite from the day, wine is what people increasingly use to relax when they get home. In fact, wine after work, without food, is now the number two reason people enjoy wine.

There are many moments during a hotel guest’s stay that are either enhanced by a great glass of wine or missed. Capturing these moments can only happen if you can deliver luxury on-demand.

So today we are introducing Plum for Hotels, the perfect in-room wine-by-the-glass experience.